MK Aryeh Eldad (NU/NRP) said Thursday that MK Ahmed Tibi and others who travel to enemy states should be put on trial and sentenced to prison. Eldad said he believed Tibi when he said that he did not see Yemen or Lebanon as enemy states. “They really don’t see these states as enemy states,” Eldad said of Arab MKs who illegally visit enemy countries. “We need to understand that they aren’t traitors, they are the enemy!”
Eldad accused Attorney General Menachem Mazuz of failing to prevent Tibi’s behavior by failing to enforce existing laws. There are laws against visiting enemy states and laws that prohibit those who do not recognize Israel as a Jewish state from running for Knesset, Eldad said, “but they aren’t enforced for fear for democracy--but then we get anarchy.”
Tibi recently visited Lebanon and Yemen, where he met local rulers and discussed talks between rival terrorist groups Fatah and Hamas. Tibi remained defiant despite harsh criticism, and said Thursday that he would visit enemy states whenever he wished.